Daily Devotion

READ Proverbs 3:5-6 

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths."

So much easier said than done isn’t it?  My paradigm tends to be very different from this.  It’s much more like: 

Step 1) Take a good look at the problem,

Step 2) Figure out how to get around the problem ('cause you’re a good problem solver)

Step 3) Work hard to get around it ('cause hard work always wins)

Step 4) Realize the problem is in fact TOO BIG TO GET AROUND.  (go back to step 1 and try again)

 

After 3 or 4 tries of this, then I realize, “oh yeah, sometimes my understanding isn’t good enough….. and sometimes I’m in things for the wrong reason… and sometimes what seems like a perfectly straight line actually looks more like a horrible attempt at abstract art”.  Of course all of this is in retrospect.  

You, too, right?  Yeah that’s what I thought.  At least we both admit to it. 

Every once in a while I remember who I am before I attack the mountain that is front of me, and I remember the way the mountains before have fallen and it becomes crystal clear: I didn’t create my own path and invite God, I asked God if I could join Him on His path and that’s how the mountain fell. 

We get tricked sometimes when we look back at the great odds we have overcome before, and like all people who have followed God throughout history we forget that it was not us, but Him through us, that overcame such incredible odds.  It’s ok though, He still loves us and still moves through us, and is still for us.  

Wherever you are today, whatever the horizon is obstructed by, may we take time to remember that we were once broken beyond repair.  Until something greater than us called our name and said “come with me and you won’t catch fish anymore, you’ll be the instrument I use to catch the souls of men on fire with a love this world cannot contain.  Trust me. Don’t trust what you know. Acknowledge me, and I’ll lead you on a fantastic journey.  

Today may we rest in this - that we are not to be ashamed of the fisherman we once were, toiling, and striving, covered in the stench of the best we could grasp with our own hands. No! We should be unashamed of the story, of how a great Man named Jesus gave us a higher calling and asked us to trust Him, to acknowledge Him and ultimately to be used to overcome great odds for his namesake. He washed us and made us clean and gave us a hope for something more… so let us be Unashamed.